stop trading.announcement coming., page-17

re: i'm sure the best has already come.. This is a cheap shot. Jervois has never claimed the scandium has bankable value, but it must be hopeful a market can be developed. There's a lot of chatter about base-ball bats, tent-poles and high intensity lighting and even a Smith & Wesson hand gun, but the real market potential is fuel cells. (Just Google Sc and fuel cells). This was behind the CSIRO/Jervois study of scandium alloys - apparently some very positive results. The NATO advanced materials group did a number of studies as well.

But you'd have to say the real interest in Jervois is the Young deposit worth over $20-25 billion gross or maybe $5-6 billion discounted for time and assuming a low nickel price for a decade. ie Jervois could hand over 70% and still be retain in-ground discounted value of over one billion.

The new process seems to unlock most of the iron, nickel and cobalt and also do it at low temperatures, normal atmospheric pressures with acid re-cycling. How much acid recyling is yet to be seen but give the cost of transporting acid or making it on site, this could be a major factor in a start-up decision.

The other aspect is the on site and near site infrastructure. There is a gas pipeline crossing the lease, a rail line nearby plus roads, water and power. Young is 30kms away for accommodation, supplies etc. Mining is simple earth moving open cut, no blasting. no concrete line tunnels etc and pits could be back-filled he grade is under 1% nickel but that's relative to the far higher operational costs of undergound nickel operations where the grades are say 5-6%.

What they haven't go yet is a partner and/or potential off-take contracts. If/when a partner is announced, the serious end of town would start to do its numbers on cash-flow from a plant more or less up the road to Sydney (no fly-in crews), lower than normal overheads and relatively short rail haulage in and out.Plus the source is in stable, contract-based Australia. Still a few hurdles to jump but a bit of gap between day trader valuatiuions and the industrial realities.

Obviously if a partner is announced the serious end of the town could start doing the numbers on cash-flow from a relatively low cost plant, and low cost in-puts.